Update: 10/31 19:30 GMT by C: Barry sent in this one for you Apple lovers: "I saw your Linux jack-o-lantern, but how about this? The guys over at iPodHacks.com have actually carved an iPod into a pumpkin, creating the world's only iPod-o-Lantern. That's 7000 songs in your...pumpkin. Thought you might want to update the Halloween posting, as this is an ideal fit."

And it just wouldn't be Halloween without the following, from a nameless submittor: "To quote the site, 'Extreme Halloween Fright.' A fairly comprehensive guide to making your pumpkin a bit more hi-tech using power tools, and perhaps the definitive pumpkin trepanning site." Pumpkins and powertools. How can you go wrong?

how come on 364 days a year we tell our kids not to talk to strangers and certainly not to take sweets from them, but on one day of the year we actively encourage it? Such is our modern society.

Simple, it's Halloween, an evil, pagan holiday. Asking for handouts, taking candy from strangers, egging and TP'ing houses, dressing ridiculously or even cross-dressing, scaring people for no reason, and listening to Michael Jackson. All terrible things to do regularly, but they're all accepted and even encourage

Why do we scream about SCO stealing our software when many of us actively download MP3?Why do we yell that fast food is bad for us yet we still eat there?Why does America "liberate" Iraq because they had a WMD program when we have nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons being developed right now?

Well, 364 days a year we tell our kids not to talk to strangers and certainly not to take sweets from them and one day a year adults repeat urban legends about tampered candy and bring chocolate to the hospital to be X-rayed -- apparently unaware that they're buying into a somewhat updated version of Hansel and Gretel. So it's not so inconsistent.

What faires are you at? The California ones? I'm at Tuxedo and we don't have anything near that many pagans. Among the boothies it's prevalent (and maybe the gamers too), I guess, but probably not even 45%, and there's hardly any pagans to be found among the performers, beverages, concessions, grounds, etc...

To call yourself a "neo-pagan" requires much too self-aware an assertation for your religion. It sounds like not something you believe in so much as something you settled on accepting in order to have a label.

For example... this is my first post EVER on Slashdot after being an observer for quite a few years now.

And going out on halloween is scary too... for example, I've never done the costume thing but my girlfriend has just called and has concocted some crazy plan which now boils down to me ACTUALLY THINKING about obtaining a chain saw.

Now friends, THAT is scary.

I s'pose this "first message" will gain no kudos from those who score these sorts of things, but beware... it is halloween.

You bastards! No false advertising here. Just pictures of a pumpkin with a penguin cut into it, and some seperate pictures of one of those micro-pcs. Dammit, I spent 10 minutes trying to figure out how he got the thing into the pumpkin and why there weren't any pictures of it...

If you want some background on the Celtic (and eventually Christian) origins of All Hallows Eve and All Souls' Day there's a really good (and long) explanation here [cultureplanet.com], although I dunno how much longer after Halloween it'll stay up.

If you haven't carved a pumpkin yet, here's a tip: A RotoZip spiral saw works perfectly on pumpkin rind. Probably a lot safer than throwing your weight into a dull old serrated knife, especially when the pumpkin's really tough. Since the saw pushes the chips down, it doesn't make as much of a mess as you'd think. You have to be careful not to overshoot where you're trying to cut.

...the long-missing "cocoon" scene was edited back in brilliantly; now I know where Ripley was crawling up from when she returned to the escape pod! It fit perfectly; glad to see that scene put (back) in.

Was this scene actually missing from the original releases? Was it in previous VHS or TV versions? I could swear I've seen it before. I did read the movie novel as a kid before I ever saw the film, though, so it's possible I crossed signals from the story w/ scenes from Aliens and concocted that image for myself.

Also...

In older versions, when Brett is washing his face in the falling water just before he's killed, can you see the alien cur

For around the first 100 years after the settlers came to America, all beer was pumpkin beer. It wasn't called "pumpkin beer" as though it were a novel thing, as all beer was made from pumpkins as it was what was available. Interesting, little known fact.

After building their l33t pumpkin server, the geeks settled down to some D&D. After rolling a 26 and casting a spell of protection, a curious odor could be smelled wafting around the room. It wasn't the usual unwashed geek, it had a decidedly female scent.

They put down their die and walked toward the room with their pumpkin server. The door creeked open and a haunting sight was in their midst. Some of them passed out, others began weeping uncontrollably. The more dauntless of the group stepped closer, and closer to......

i just did a google search for goatse. among the original and copycat goatse pics, i found this one. i always wondered what i looked like when i first viewed the real goatse pic. this photograph speaks volumes. (don't worry, it's not dirty.)

http://www.cellosoft.com/nash/garbage/photos/chr is d_AFTER_goatse.jpg

I saw Alien on wednesday when it first opened here (Philly) and first off there was a teaser for the next Resident Evil movie. wooohoooo! It's also on Apple's site [apple.com] if you want to watch it on your computer (Quicktime required). There is also some teaser/featurette for the upcoming ALIEN VS PREDATOR on the site.

As for Alien, it was awesome.... if you don't like the movie, then you might not like it no matter what, but i was 5 when it first came out and to see it in a theater with the bonus stuff in it was fun. It was amusing in a way with the 1979 technology, like flourescent lights that stutter when they come on and computers that make beeps and clickity clack noises. All that aside, I WISH MORE MOVIES USED MORE REAL MODELS AND LESS CG! Generally i am not one to gripe about CG, but the few scenes where the alien is hiding and they pan right over it..... that just can't come across in CG the way a physical model can. YIKES!

no, it's not the scaries movie of all time, but if you are going to nitpick on every detail of a movie, then you are no fun anyway. even so i have seen this movie a few times on TV/DVD/VHS and knew mostly was happening when..... it was still sooooooo worth my $8.00i realize by Alien3 or Ressurection the stuff they had the aliens do just could not all be puppets anymore, but dang they really are so much creepier......

on a side note KILL BILL used no CG in the movie, all wires, rubber, plastic and 400 gallons of fake blood. nice to see some people keeping it old school.

Everything that we associate with Easter, like the bunnies and such, come from pagan spring fertility rituals. Even the word easter comes from a Germanic pagan word, Oester, that is the name of such a fertitlity rite.

And, truth be told, Easter celebrations in most Christian denominations usually have no resemblance to the Jewish feast of Passover.

And, truth be told, Easter celebrations in most Christian denominations usually have no resemblance to the Jewish feast of Passover.

So what? It's actually based on the actual events of the crucifiction. Jesus was hanging on the cross and he called his diciples to him and said: "So guys, how are you going to celebrate this in the future." Peter, having sipped a bit to much to the blood of his lord the day before, said "Well, uhh, we could, uhh, you know... paint some hardboild eggs."

There are also a ton of other pagan spring equinox festivals that have been blended into Easter. The biggest one is probably Attis, a pre-christian god who, oddly, was born of a virgin, died, and came back three days later. One-upping Christ though, he came back to life annually thereafter, rather than making his followers go through all of this tedious waiting for the apocolypse.

Umm, as a Jew- Easter has NOTHING to do with passover. And Easter does have many pagan symbologies- the easter bunny is a pagan fertility symbol. SO are easter eggs.

So next time you send your kids out on an egg hunt, you can realize that you're sending a 7 year old girl out to find fertility symbols, only to come back and have her picture taken sitting on the lap of another giant fertility symbol. Pervert.

Actually, Easter has quite a lot to do with Passover. The events that Easter celebrates are based on the account of events that occured during Passover. Jesus was celebrating Passover when he was betrayed and turned over to the Roman authorities. The "real" rituals basically involve reading the Bible account of the events and "remembering" how Jesus rose from the dead to absolve people of their sins, or something.

Easter occurs based on when Passover occurs. Easter is supposed to be a celebration of th

For those of you are interested in things like this (orgins of Holidays) here's a book that explains a lot of them:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0316 545562/qid=1067629142/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-839615 4-8956157?v=glance&s=books A World Lit Only By Fire: The Medieval Mind, And the Renaissance - by William Manchester (Author)

Christianity was developed over many centuries, and spread through very diverse populations. The cultures that joined the Christian ranks greatly influenced the religion and added to its lore in their own unique ways. It wasn't that the Christians "stole" any given pagan holiday, it's that certain pagan groups converted to Christianity, and their most important celebrations were altered to fall in-line with their new faith.

Forget the name, but there's the writings of a monk in the British isles, on how to interpret the existing pagan holidays of the area to 'Christian ideals,' where many of our modern holidays really come from (down to the use of evergreen trees for Christmas, use of silver and gold lights, etc). Interesting read, really...

What are you talking about? Pagans have been around for 1000s of years, and predate all of the modern religions. Where do you think Christmas came from before the whole Christianity thing? Pagan holiday celebrating the shortest day of the year, and the return of the days getting longer.

Care to explain how a 2000 year old religion such as christianity could have 'just swiped' observances belonging to a pseudo religion like paganism with roots in the 19th century?

Actualy, they swiped the Samhain holiday from the Celts who were around since 800 B.C. From the
entry at howstuffworks.com [howstuffworks.com]:

Originally, Christians observed All Saints' Day on May 13. But in the eighth century, Pope Gregory III moved it to November 1. Officially, the Church chose this new date to mark the papal dedication of a

Perhaps the pagan goddess "Eostre", goddess of fertility? BTW, easter eggs, bunnies, hot cross buns, and lilies all have ties to this or similar goddesses of fertility.

To be fair, it may also come from the german "ostern" meaning sunrise. There's a fairly decent page about it here [religioustolerance.org]. Surf around if you want more info on ties between Easter and pagan rituals.

The fact remains that Easter is celebrated at about the same time as other celebrations in a mu